My Office Needs Some Rain

Don’t laugh at me. But I am obsessing about rain right now. It really needs to rain. I am kind of freaking out about it.

Do you see how low our back pond is? Look at that. In my almost four years in this house, I’ve never seen it this low.

This is kind of boring you isn’t it? Well, its big news for me.

Let me back up a bit.

While I am home everyday, putzing around the house and writing posts, I don’t see all that much action. Unless you count my 2 yo pooping on the floor 3 feet away from his potty “action”. But I don’t really call that action. I call that a pain in the ass. But I digress.

So while real people in real offices wearing real business suits watch the exciting world go by from where they busily tackle the world’s problems, I am tucked away here in suburbia. The trash truck comes by. The mail is dropped off. Maybe an occasional school bus. But other than that, the sun shines down, driveways await their commuting residents, the flowers wave in the breeze and nothing seems to really happen around here.

But I actually think a lot happens outside my “office” window. My backyard is a virtual daily drama. I’ve mentioned all the animals before. Currently, there are at least three alligators moving between our ponds. We have a rabbit who appears first thing in the morning and late in the evening to snack on our grass. All varieties of herons, hawks and other birds swoop in to enjoy what our ponds offer. Deer come to graze and sip from our receding ponds midday. Lizards, snakes and turtles hustle about. There are actual bass in those ponds and the alligators will chase your lure down for them. I’ve seen bobcat and wild boar on multiple occasions. At night, bats and owls flit about, the bushes rustle, we hear calls in the night and unknown shadows wander by (most likely armadillo). I have even awoken to hear someone trying to get into our back porch only to discover a raccoon, up on his haunches, working the door latch with all his might. We joke we need to charge admission to our backyard. Guests are guaranteed to see something interesting whenever they visit.

So my office is pretty exciting. At least I think so. I love to observe the comings and goings of every beastie, the progress of each growing plant and now the level of the ponds.

I hate droughts. And I could tell you the story about the drought I experienced in Africa that meant such severe water restrictions, our dormitories were only allowed two showers per week for 10 minutes stretches with 3 people per shower nozzle. I could go on about that. But it might sound a bit like my father telling the story about how he walked to school everyday in the snow, uphill both ways – so I’ll spare you. I just know the value of water. That’s all.

And I also know that the state of Florida needs some. Badly. We haven’t had any significant rain at all since that heart-stopping tornado awhile back. Not cool.

Here is a video of an alligator who was trying to get himself comfortable in one of the back ponds last week (last week there was still some water in that pond). My mother in law and I happened to watch this alligator crawl through my backyard (it was only about 3 feet long, not big – or dangerous – by any means) and then lumber down to the water’s mud’s edge. I grabbed my camera and this is what I caught.